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A2Dominion has announced the appointment of a new interim director to oversee ongoing improvement plans around compliance with governance standards.
Hilary Milne, who will be the association’s new interim director of governance and compliance, is a specialist in helping landlords to resolve compliance issues.
At the start of 2024, A2Dominion was rated non-compliant for governance, being downgraded from G1 to G3 after an investigation announced in September 2023, when it also revealed an annual deficit of £12.8m.
The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) said it lacked assurance that A2Dominion had a robust risk management, internal control and assurance framework to enable it to manage and mitigate risks.
This was because the landlord had failed to manage key risks effectively, which led to some poor outcomes for tenants. The RSH also said it lacked assurance that A2Dominion’s data and systems were adequate, hindering the oversight of its board.
Ms Milne’s hiring follows the association’s appointment of Anna Keast as its head of governance and compliance in March 2024, as it shook up its senior leadership team after the downgrade. But Ms Keast only remained in the job seven months before returning to one of her previous employers, London and Essex landlord Local Space.
Tracey Barnes, the 38,000-home G15 landlord’s chief finance officer, believes Ms Milne will bring a “wealth of experience and knowledge of the sector” to A2Dominion.
“I look forward to working closely with her to implement our improvement plans to deliver better results for the group,” she added.
Ms Milne previously worked on an interim basis for Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) after the RSH found significant failings in its handling of damp and mould issues, in the wake of toddler Awaab Ishak’s death. RBH was also downgraded from G1 to G3.
Prior to her work with RBH, Ms Milne also worked as director of governance and compliance with One Housing between 2018 and 2022, and performed a similar role for Genesis from 2015 to 2018.
Ms Milne said she was “delighted to be joining A2Dominion and to be able to support the board, the executive directors and colleagues on the journey back to regulatory compliance.”
She added: “Embedding good governance, regulatory compliance and risk management are central to A2Dominion’s success.”
In August, A2Dominion appointed Andrew Knox to a new role of finance transformation director to help it make its financial operations more efficient and effective, as part of its improvement plans.
The landlord has also been consulting around redundancies in its development team, as it seeks to focus on its existing stock.
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